The Value of Information (VOI) in a decision making process or work flow is sometimes difficult to calculate. Classical VOI techniques are generally restricted to analysis of a single element or decision and also to a one-time acquisition of information. However, a work process (workflow) combines many elements and may use more than one piece of information. Additionally, the work process may acquire and use information continuously or repeatedly.
A work element is any distinct part of a workflow or work process that may be estimated for purposes of determining the extent that the element contributes value to either the present workflow or to a change in value to a proposed workflow (i.e., a workflow in which one or more work elements have been modified). A distinct part may be one or more devices or steps, or a combination of one or more devices and/or steps. Improvements may be made to one or more elements to improve a work process. These improvements may be the result of applying new technologies, such as new sensors or analytical tools. However, they may also be the result of improving the way existing data is collected and displayed. This may involve no change at all to the existing sensors as installed. The improvements may also be due to changing a process or behavior.
Access to relevant expert personnel is often restricted when evaluating a work process (or a workflow) due to competition for the time of the expert personnel. Therefore, a methodology or evaluation tool is desirable which elicits required information (i.e., what is the qualitative value improvement of changing the workflow procedure?) subject to the following preferred constraints. First, the tool should be logical and intuitive. Second, the tool should be easy to use and understand. Third, the results using the tool should be easy to view and analyze. Finally, the time to elicit the information necessary to evaluate a work process should be limited. Unfortunately, many work process evaluation tools and methods are complex, time consuming and produce results which are difficult to clearly comprehend.
Insight into the work processes (or a workflows) involving information flow is described by David B. Lawrence in his book entitled “The Economic Value of Information”, Springer Company, 1999. This book describes how information may be split into two levels: System Data Processing and User Information Processing. This bifurcation simply separates the collection, storage, and provision of data by some method (for example, computer database) and the delivery of the data to a person, who must collect, understand and act upon the data. The result of this act is seen as increasing the value of this work process (or a workflow). However, this process has the shortcomings of not readily identifying those work elements of a work flow that can best be enhanced to provide maximum enhancement of the overall value of a workflow.
Therefore, there is a need for a tool and process methodology which estimates the qualitative improvement a workflow will experience if changes are made to the various elements of the workflow while avoiding the aforementioned shortcomings and complexities of previous work process evaluation methods and tools. For example, obtaining a perceived value of a change to an element of a workflow may establish the relative merits to implementing the change as opposed to a another change. The present invention addresses this need.